Comic Book / New Avengers

Avengers, Assemble!^note Clockwise from middle top: The Sentry, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Captain America, Iron Man, Ronin, Luke Cage, and Spider-Woman.

The Marvel Universe's all-star superhero team, rebranded for the new millennium.

After Avengers Disassembled, Tony Stark disbanded the Avengers. Six months later, a prison riot at the Raft proved that the world needed an Avengers team, so Captain America recruited the other heroes who helped stop the riot — Iron Man, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, and Spider-Woman — to form the New Avengers. As the first few arcs went on, the team was joined by Wolverine, The Sentry and Ronin (a disguised Echo, sent by Daredevil in his place, later replaced by a resurrected Hawkeye). Following Civil War (2006) through to the end of Dark Reign, the team was forced underground, but with the beginning of the Heroic Age they were free to operate openly. The series lasted for 64 issues (January, 2005-June, 2010).

Following Dark Reign, the team was officially sanctioned by S.H.I.E.L.D., and was one of two public teams of Avengers active in the Marvel Universe. They were led by Luke Cage, and they were based in Avengers Mansion.

In other media, the team (consisting of Spider-Man, Luke Cage, War Machine, Iron Fist, Wolverine, and The Thing) appeared in a self-titled episode of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Most of the members also are playable heroes in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance. Also, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the New Avengers are referenced at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron^note The immediate follow-up, Captain America: Civil War, doesn't pick up on this in which, with Thor leaving for Asgard, the Hulk for parts unknown, and Iron Man and Hawkeye leaving the team, Cap and Black Widow decide to rebrand the team with War Machine, the Falcon, Scarlet Witch and The Vision as its new formation.

Not to be confused with the British TV show The New Avengers, which was a revival of The Avengers (1960s).

For the 2012 New Avengers, please see The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman). For the All-New, All-Different 2015 New Avengers, please see New Avengers (2015).

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Tropes used in New Avengers:

Volume I Tropes

• Accidental Hero: When a demon possesses Stephen Strange and Daimon Hellstrom, Wolverine stabs them with his claws. Strange recovers, and praises Wolverine for realizing that only massive physical trauma would make the demons leave their host. Spider-Man chimes in: Wolverine simply goes for blood, it was just Crazy Enough to Work.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Any place they use as a headquarters typically has a hard time.
  • The first annual has a Super-Adaptoid powered Yelena Belova attacking the New Avengers at their Home Base in the Avenger's Tower.
  • The second annual has the Hood lead a villain attack to Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum that the New Avengers were using as their Home Base.
• All Your Powers Combined:
  • The Collective has the powers of all the mutants that Wanda DePowered during House of M.
  • The Super-Adaptoid powered Yelena Belova gets all of the powers of the New Avengers when fighting them. But when the gets The Sentry's power, she can't handle it.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: During Secret Invasion (2008), both this title and Mighty Avengers didn't feature the titular Avengers, but instead revealed backstory for several of the Skrull replacements. Justified, in that both teams were trapped in the Savage Land for a large portion of the story, and the story was originally going to be a Bat Family Crossover taking place in the two Avengers titles before Executive Meddling decided to make the story a Crisis Crossover limited series instead.
• Arc Villain:
  • Sauron and the Savage Land Mutates for the "Breakout" arc, as they were behind the breakout in the Raft.
  • The Void for "The Sentry" arc, Sentry's Superpowered Evil Side that makes him attack the heroes while Sentry and Emma Frost have a Battle in the Center of the Mind against it.
  • The Hand and Madame Hydra for the "Ronin" arc, with the New Avengers pursuing Silver Samurai to Japan and trying to prevent him from allying himself with The Hand and HYDRA.
  • The Collective for the "Collective" arc, as the Collective threatens the whole planet with its power.
  • Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. for Civil War (2006).
  • Elektra and the Hand for the "Revolution" arc, with Ronin and the New Avengers fighting against them for control of the Japanese underworld. Although by the end we find out Elektra was actually the Skrull Pagon in disguise.
  • Hood (Parker Robbins) for the "Trust" arc, with him organizing a Villain Team-Up while the heroes are busy and disorganized in the Civil War (2006) aftermath.
  • Queen Veranke and the Skrulls for Secret Invasion (2008).
  • Norman Osborn (and his Dark Avengers) and The Hood (and his gang) for Dark Reign and Siege.
• The Atoner: Doctor Strange during his stay with the team post-Civil War (2006), since he feels incredibly guilty for staying neutral during the war, which is why he lends them the Sanctum Sanctorum as their Home Base for a while, allowing them to hide from Iron Man and the government forces.
• Back for the Finale: Wolverine shows up at the very final issue to do a sneak attack on Count Nefaria, after being unavailable for the last few arcs due to events in X-Men.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: During the Raft breakout, Spider-Woman fights alongside the heroes in her S.H.I.E.L.D suit. She does start wearing a costume after that incident, when she joins the team for real.
• Badass in Distress: The first things the second line-up do are try to retrieve Captain America's body from S.H.I.E.L.D. after learning that he may still be alive, before flying to Japan to save Echo from being forced into the Hand.
• Baldness Means Sickness: During the flashback to Spider-Woman seventeen months-long procedure to get her powers back, we see that she lost her hair at some point, to illustrate how painful and demanding the procedure was.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Sentry has one with his own inner demon, The Void, who's actually Sentry repressed persona who manifested itself when Mastermind used his powers to wipe out Sentry's memories. The Mastermind also created the delusion that if Sentry ever used his powers, a creature called The Void would appear and destroy the world. With the help of Emma Frost and his wife Lindy, Sentry manages to overcome it.
• Bed Trick: The Wanda Maximoff that Hawkeye met and slept with in Transia is retroactively made into a Doombot in Avengers: The Children's Crusade, meaning poor Clint actually slept with a Doombot without knowing.
• Benevolent Boss: Hood keeps his villains loyal by treating them well, including making an effort to bust them out of prison if they get arrested.
• Beautiful Condemned Building: Discussed when Doctor Strange conceals the New Avengers in his own mansion, bespelled to look decrepit and boarded up (to twist the knife a bit more, it even wears a "Coming Soon — A Starbucks" banner).
• Big Bad:
  • Skrull Queen Veranke is the main antagonist for the run until her defeat in Secret Invasion (2008), having her hands in almost every bad thing that happens to the New Avengers since they formed as a Hidden Villain, which is appropriate since she joined them in the very first issue as Spider-Woman.
  • Norman Osborn and the Hood become the Big Bad Duumvirate after Secret Invasion (2008), forming an alliance, with Norman taking control of the government as a Villain with Good Publicity while The Hood takes over the New York criminal world with his gang.
• Big Blackout: In order to knock out power to cause a Great Escape on the Raft, Electro absorbs so much electricity that it causes a blackout in the entirety of New York. This is how Spider-Man, who was just hanging out in his apartment with Mary Jane, gets alerted that something's wrong.
• Big Brother Mentor: Iron Man takes Spider-Man as his protégé, giving him a highly advanced suit and a secure place for his family on the Avengers' tower. In Civil War (2006), Spider-Man turns on his friend after being appalled by Iron Man's draconian methods to enforce the Super Human Registration Act.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • Just as Sauron is about to use his hypnotic gaze to enslave the New Avengers, he gets shot in the head by Yelena Belova. Although she turns her gun on the New Avengers right after.
  • The Jarvis Skrull is killed by a headshot from Bullseye.
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • Echo is brainwashed and fights alongside Elektra and the Hand. Iron Fist tries an "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight to no avail, but Doctor Strange manages to dispel the Hand's magic on her, undoing the brainwashing.
  • Spider-Man has to fight off Spider-Woman while she's enthralled by Mandrill's Pheromones. They eventually wear out, but Spidey and Jessica pretend it hasn't so they can get a drop on Mandrill when he gets close.
• Brought Down to Normal: Using stolen Stark tech, Evil Genius Jonas Harrow builds a power disruptor device that Chemistro uses to depower the New Avengers, giving the Wrecking Crew a chance to take them out, with the only one untouched being Badass Normal Mockingbird. Curiously the power disruptor also knocks out Clint/Ronin, even though he's also a Badass Normal, and the story never explains why. It also works on The Sentry when he shows up to help them.
• Climactic Elevator Ride: An interesting variation: One issue has Luke Cage once falling off the top of a building while the team was fighting hand ninjas. He simply got up, took the elevator back to the roof, and got back into the fight.
• Coming in Hot:
  • When the team goes to the Savage Land, Spider-Man gets worried since it always ends up in a crash-landing situation. Iron-Man dismisses the idea, only to narrowly avoid being Instantly Proven Wrong when they get attacked by dinosaurs. And when they do land safely, the ship gets instantly destroyed by a T. rex the moment they step out. And when they meet Wolverine, he also admits he crashed when he arrived on the island.
  • Iron Fist's plane ends up crashing landing when they're coming to the USA with Skrull Elektra's body. Which allows Spider-Woman to take the body away.
  • During Secret Invasion (2008), they once again have to go to the Savage Land and have to crash-land when the ship gets attacked by a dinosaur.
  • When they're tracking down The Hood with the eye of Agamotto, the Quinjet gets shot down by Madame Masque with a rocket launcher.
• Cardboard Prison: The very first arc is about a major breakout at the Raft, but in future issues it doesn't take much effort for villains like the Hood to just casually go there and break people out.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Naturally, Spider-Man is the chief offender, but they all have their moments.

  Ronin [mid-battle] : Yo, Cage, do they always talk this much during a fight?
  Luke Cage: Uh, yes, actually.
  Iron Fist: Yeah, I didn't know there was banter involved. I don't do banter.
  Luke Cage: You're doing banter now, Fist.
  Iron Fist: No, I'm not.
  Luke Cage: I didn't say it was good banter.

• Chekhov's Gunman: Ronin. Despite being on all of the early covers, the character didn't appear until the midway point of the original line-up's run (and then immediately went to Japan to spy on the Hand), before becoming part of the team properly after Civil War.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Echo, after Secret Invasion (2008). Lampshaded by Spider-Man asking if anyone knew where she'd gone; and again with her reappearance when Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were looking for a Nanny, as she angrily asks if Cage even remembers that she used to be on the team.
• C-List Fodder: When the Collective showed up, he killed off the entirety of Alpha Flight — a superhero team with over thirty years of history in the Marvel Universe — before taking on the Avengers. Sure, that history consisted of being "Canada's premiere superhero team", but they were still mainstays of the setting. To add insult to injury, the guy who was possessed by the Collective at the time ends up on the new version of Alpha Flight and wears the same costume as its former leader. They've since done a major amount of backpedaling on Alpha Flight: Sasquatch was upgraded from dead to just injured after the "Collective" storyline and only Shaman and James MacDonald Hudson (the original Guardian) have been officially declared dead in the aftermath.
• Clothing Damage:
  • During the Raft breakout, several of the heroes fighting get their clothes and costumes damaged and torn, to illustrate how much they're struggling fighting so many super-villains. Matt Murdock and Luke Cage in particular, get most of their shirts completely shredded while pants seem immune to any damage.
  • When the New Avengers defeated the Dormammu possessed Hood, he falls to the floor naked, having incinerated his clothes, with Censor Steam covering his waist before Spider-Man ties him up with web.
• The Collector: The Wrecker tracks down his crowbar and costume to the house of a rich man who likes buying old super-villains costumes. According to his daughter, he likes to dress up and roleplay as them.
• Cosmic Retcon: By virtue of Spider-Man being in the cast throughout the first volume, the effects of One More Day wind up coming into effect during the build-up to Secret Invasion (2008) — as such, everyone loses their knowledge of his secret identity until he unmasks to the team again after the event.
• Costumes Change Your Size: Despite Echo and Clint having different body builds, they both wear the same Ronin costume interchangeably.
• Costume Copycat: Spider-Man lampshades the Dark Avengers use of costumes previously worn by actual heroes.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Played for Laughs with Luke Cage getting jealous of Spider-Man when Jessica confesses Peter Parker used to be her high-school crush. It becomes a Running Gag for a couple of issues.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Although he isn't named, the man officiating the wedding of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones is clearly based on Stan Lee.
  • Paul Jenkins, the writer who created The Sentry, appeared as himself in the story that revolved around the character's origin.
• Crocodile Tears: Issue #14 with Spider-Woman telling her Double Agent story to Captain America retroactively becomes this, since we learn in the future she's actually Veranke, so she didn't actually feel bad about her situation at all.
• Cross Through: The post-Civil War (2006) issues occur with the opening arc of Mighty Avengers, when the team's plane is downed by Ultron's EMP. After recovering, they watch her message to the world.
• A Day in the Spotlight: During Civil War (2006), each issue focused on an individual member of the team who didn't have their own series, with Captain America and Iron Man also getting issues due to scheduling conflicts with their own series.
• Deal with the Devil: Luke Cage has to resort to making a deal with Norman Osborn in order to find his daughter after the Skrulls kidnap her. Luke doesn't actually go through with joining Osborn, which puts him in Osborn's shitlist.
• Decapitated Army: The Hand promptly retreats after Echo kills Elektra. Spider-Man notices this is odd, since they tend not to leave bodies behind which is when they notice Elektra was actually a Skrull.
• Deep Sleep: After witnessing Brother Voodoo repel Agamotto's invasion (with tragic results), Doctor Strange wakes up in the next issue and is told he's been asleep for fifteen hours.
• Disability Superpower:
  • Daredevil has enhanced senses, including a "radar sense" that shows him the world around him.
  • Echo is a deaf woman who possesses "photographic reflexes" that allow her to mimic the feats of those around her.
• Doctor, Doctor, Doctor: Played for Laughs in one of the Illuminati meetings:
  Doctor Strange: Doctor Richards.
  Reed Richards: Doctor Strange.
  Tony Stark: You guys love calling yourself Doctor. I have three doctorates, you don't see me -
  Reed: Doctor Stark.
  Tony: Thank you.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Hood's attack on Tigra has some pretty blatant parallels to a rape, complete with a battered Tigra lying sobbing on the floor after it's over. When he sneaks up in her bedroom in the second annual, the scene also has rape parallels, especially since she Sleeps in the Nude and most of his gang is clearly leering at her. A later arc in Avengers Academy drives it home even further when Tigra discusses her assault on live television and states that it's not her shame to bear, but her attacker's.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": After Spider-Man unmasks and reveals his Secret Identity to the team, he keeps getting stressed out whenever they refer to him as "Peter", paranoid that someone else (like a villain) could be listening.
• Don't Sneak Up on Me Like That!: When Wolverine sneaks up behind Spider-Woman on the Savage Land, her reaction is to flip him over and stabs him in the throat with his own claws. Given it's Wolverine, he survives, but it's still very annoyed by it, but Jessica isn't sympathetic given he snuck up on her with his claws out.
• Double Agent: Victoria Hand, with the requisite "whose side is she really on?" questions. The period between the end of Dark Reign and Avengers vs. X-Men plays this for all it's worth.
• Double Entendre: When Ant-Man and Doctor Strange go into Luke Cage's body to retrieve an explosive device from his heart, Spider-Man can't resist reminding Luke that "you have two men inside you right now."
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: A complicated double agent situation is created due in regard to Spider-Woman. First, she's contacted by HYDRA, who offer to get her powers back in exchange for her to become The Mole for them in S.H.I.E.L.D., however she immediately tells Nick Fury and they both arranged for her to be a Double Agent that would actually only feed them intel Fury approved of. But unbeknown to Jessica or Fury, the HYDRA agents that gave her powers back turned out to actually be an alien Skrull cell that infiltrated HYDRA, and after giving Jessica her powers back, Queen Veranke used Jessica's DNA to enable her to perfectly impersonate Jessica as Spider-Woman. She stayed as a mole in S.H.I.E.L.D., but jumped at the chance to join the New Avengers so she could keep an eyes on them and could get a chance to personally examine Tony's Stark tech. She only got found out during the Secret Invasion (2008) event.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: When Doctor Strange joined the team post-Civil War (2006), he was quickly stripped of his Sorcerer Supreme status, which greatly weakened him and limited what he could do with his powers. He would not be restored to full power until the final issue of Brian Bendis' run.
• The Dreaded: Elektra, as far as Japan is concerned. Or not, since it's her Skrull replacement.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Yelena Belova, the blonde Black Widow replacement for Natasha, is unceremoniously disfigured in the first arc after being set on fire. She is brought back in the annual as a villain only to be quickly disposed of by her HYDRA masters.
  • The entirety of Alpha Flight is apparently killed, off-panel no less, by The Collective / Michael Pointer / Xorn. This was eventually undone.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The New Avengers go through hell on this run ever since Civil War (2006) begins, what with them being on the losing side and their leader Captain America dying. The New Avengers become fugitives on the run from their former friends. And soon enough they have to deal with a secret Alien Invasion from the Skrulls in Secret Invasion (2008) and even when they manage to thwart it, Norman Osborn ends up taking the credit and replaces Tony Stark as the new 'top cop' and the New Avengers fugitive status becomes even more dire. But they endure it, and Norman Osborn is finally defeated and exposed during the events of Siege, and The Hood's crime syndicate gets permanently dissolved. Steve Rogers also comes Back from the Dead and takes over as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. so the New Avengers can finally stop hiding.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Yelena Belova, the other Black Widow, is already a badass spy, but HYDRA gave her the Power Copying powers of Super-Adaptoid, so she could face all of the New Avengers on her own.
• Establishing Character Moment: The Sentry grabs Carnage and flies him out into space and tears the symbiote in two. The second arc established the Sentry's character to a fuller extent, but this established that he was not going to be a low-level hero.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Electro took the Raft job because the money was enough for him to retire while providing for his waitress girlfriend. But said girlfriend is horrified by what he did, and it turns out to be All for Nothing in the end as the New Avengers arrest him soon after.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Spider-Man and Jessica Jones, complete with the embarrassing revelations that she had a crush on him; and that Peter didn't even realize that Jessica Jones, superhero and former Bugle co-worker, went to the same school as him as he only knew her as "Coma Girl".
• Eviler than Thou: The Hood's first appearance is him shooting the Owl.
• Face Framed in Shadow: The villain who hired Electro to create a Big Blackout to cause the prison breakout at the Raft has their body covered by shadows. It's later revealed it was Elektra, or rather the Skrull Elektra, supposedly working for the Savage Land Mutates, but actually working for the Skrulls to cause chaos with the Raft breakout.
• Falling into the Cockpit: Echo has to Fly Iron Man's Quinjet when Captain America and Spider-Woman fall into the ocean. Tony is worried, warning her the plane isn't a normal one, but Echo manages it just fine. When he inquires how she learned, she just explains to him (and to the audience) that's how her powers "photographic reflexes" work: she learned how to fly, by just watching him do it.
• "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: In one story arc, Hank Pym and Doctor Strange enter Luke Cage's body to remove an explosive device from his heart.
• Fastball Special:
  • With Wolverine on the team, one of the heavy hitters will occasionally perform the traditional variant.
  • Spider-Man and Iron Fist used a variant in a battle with Ragnarok, with Iron Fist as the projectile.
• Final Boss: The final villain they face is Madame Masque's father, Count Nefaria, who is about to make a deal with The Hood to give him powers. But the Avengers interrupt them. Despite being a Flying Brick and Superman Substitute, Ms. Marvel and Wolverine defeat Nefaria rather easily in three pages. Partially justified, in that the New Avengers specifically planned out the quickest and most effective way to take him down, whilst he had no idea of the ambush.
• Foreshadowing: There are a few scenes that foreshadow what's going on with Spider-Woman:
  • When everyone's scared about who might be a Skrull, Doctor Strange casts a spell to make sure everyone is who they say they are, and if they're lying it hurts them. The only one to react negatively is Spider-Woman, who spends several panels having difficulty standing up. Which no-one notices.
  • Spider-Woman's Civil War tie-in focus issue is completely lacking in any inner monologue or narration from her or anything that gets into her head and shows what she's thinking, unlike nearly every other focus issue. Because of course, it's not her but Veranke and her inner motives are not at all what "Spider-Woman" appears to be doing.
• Forgotten First Meeting: When Spidey reveals himself as Peter Parker for the post-Secret Invasion (2008), it leads to Jessica Jones actually recognizing him and revealing they went to high school together (which actually was in her origin story), and she gets all excited because she used to have a huge crush on him. The funny thing is, this is the second time he's unmasked (he made a Deal with the Devil to mindwipe the whole world into forgetting his identity), and she didn't say anything the first time! And Peter actually has no memory of her at all until she mentions she was in a coma, and he remembers her as "the coma girl", and she's very disappointed he didn't even know her name.
• Fugitive Arc: Post-Civil War (2006), the New Avengers are fugitives from the government, with Tony Stark and his Avengers openly searching and trying to arrest them. This goes on until after the Secret Invasion (2008) arc is over... when Norman Osborn replaces Tony as the new 'top cop' in America and things get even worse until he's finally defeated and exposed as a villain during the events of Siege.
• Full-Frontal Assault:
  • After getting captured by the Savage Land Mutates, the New Avengers are all stripped naked and imprisoned. When Iron Man uses his voice to remotely control his suit to free everyone, the Avengers are forced to fight off the first wave of Savage Land Mutates in the nude, with plenty of convenient objects, shadows and Shoulders-Up Nudity shots to conceal any actual nakedness.
  • In the "The Collective" arc, Alaskan mutant Michael Pointer is possessed by the vengeful spirit of a dead Chinese mutant who idolizes Magneto, who also happens to drag along the power sets of all the mutants who were depowered on M-Day. After the initial explosion, which destroys his entire hometown, he starts walking to the lower 48 across Canada, obliviously destroying anything and anybody in his path. Throughout the four-issue arc, he is starkers — his clothes were burnt off right at the start, although he has a Barbie Doll Anatomy with his powers active. When he loses his powers and he turns back human, he's naked and uses his hands to cover himself until he's handed a blanket.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: The Hand attempts to Brainwash Echo by throwing her into a dark pit with no light for three days, making her almost go nuts with sensory deprivation.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: When fighting the Hand ninjas, Wolverine is noticeably the only one that keeps getting fatally injured by them.
• Great Escape:
  • The incident with led to the formation of the New Avengers was a big prison breakout that occurred at the super-villain prison the Raft.
  • Later, the Hood leads another breakout at the Raft, rescuing the men that were working with him as well as picking up new recruits.
• Groin Attack:
  • During the mission to rescue Echo, Luke Cage takes down Elektra by giving her a hard kick in the groin, which makes her crumple to the ground. It's Played for Laughs given the funny Reaction Shots from everyone, with even The Hand Mook ninjas looking shocked.
  • During the Bar Brawl against The Hood, Wolverine gets shot in the crotch, which leaves Logan too injured to pursue The Hood. Given he has Healing Factor, he's mostly just annoyed about it.
  Wolverine: Maybe it'll grow back bigger.
• Handicapped Badass: Echo is a deaf woman with photographic memory; and Daredevil is a blind man with "Radar Sense". Both are superheroes with uncanny fighting skills.
• Head-Turning Beauty:
  • Spider-Woman gets this reaction from Iron Man and Luke Cage when she appears in her sexy red and yellow costume
  Iron Man: Well, Agent Drew... In the most P.C., non-threatening, professional way I'd like to say...
  Luke Cage: Damn, girl.
  Iron Man: Exactly.
  • Luke Cage makes several remarks about Suspiria when he sees her, even when his wife is standing right next to him.
• Hero Does Public Service: Between adventures with cosmic-level threats, the Avengers take time to stand on street corners in bad neighborhoods to help make people feel more secure and let small-time crooks know they're not below them.
• Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: Played With in one of the final issues where Steve Rogers, newly-instated as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., offers each member of the team a stipend for their heroics. Luke Cage initially refuses because he is extremely anti-establishment and was adamant that the team remains autonomous. His wife immediately snatches the check and loudly reminds him that thanks to their last battle, they have nowhere to live, no food, no diapers, and no other necessities to take care of their infant child. Luke promptly shuts up and accepts the check.
• Hero with Bad Publicity:
  • One of Spider-Man's fears about joining the team is that he'll bring his bad publicity with him to the New Avengers. But Iron Man comforts him, pointing out joining the New Avengers will improve his publicity not the other way around. Tony and Steve even have a meeting with Jameson to -pre-warn him about Spider-Man's membership. But this backfires when Jameson acts as if Stark tries to bride him and he slams the entirety of the Avengers when they reveal themselves to the public, showing that poor Peter was right after all.
  • Their publicity becomes much worse during Civil War (2006) when the team is split by Iron Man and Captain America, with the New Avengers who sided with Cap needing to go underground since S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to arrest them.
  • Then when Norman Osborn rises to power in the USA, their publicity gets even worse, with Osborn constantly manipulating things to make them look bad while making his Dark Avengers look good.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Luke Cage and Iron Fist, naturally. Spider-Man mocks this by asking Luke if Danny is available for dating.
• Hey, That's My Line!:
  • Spider-Man invokes this in regards to Luke Cage.
  Spider-Man: I'm telling you. This is fishy. Fishy fishy.
  Luke Cage: My spider-sense is tingling too.
  Spider-Man: That's copyrighted.
  • Hilariously invoked by the Thing when the New Avengers make a Dynamic Entry into the New Dark Avengers base.
  Thing: Guess what time it is!
  Spider-Man: Really, you'll never guess!
  Ms. Marvel: Is it clobberin' time?
  Spider-Man: Oh man, you guessed it right off the bat! First try!
  Thing: Guys, you called me all the way out here. The least you could do is let me do my own catchphrase!
• Hidden Depths:
  • Spider-Man's status as The Smart Guy, but only after the changes due to the One More Day Reset Button took effect.
  • In an early story, Iron Man chides Peter for not using his brain as much as he could.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: When the team was hiding out at the Sanctum Sanctorum, Doctor Strange cast a spell on the building that made it appear as if it had been long been deserted. He even went so far as to use a codeword which also hid any inhabitants that used it. Subverted, as Iron Man suspected the team were doing this, but couldn't find a magic-user (or at least, a magic-user willing to work with S.H.I.E.L.D.) able to overcome Strange's spell.
• Home Base:
  • Stark/Avengers Tower until Civil War (2006).
  • Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum until he left the team.
  • "Avengers Apartment", the crappy apartment Iron Fist gets for the team to hide in until Secret Invasion (2008), which they use for all of two issues.
  • Bucky's Safehouse until Siege.
  • Avengers Mansion since the end of Dark Reign.
• Hostage Situation: When cornered, Madame Masque takes a civilian hostage, points a gun at the woman's head and demands the heroes to retreat. Bucky resolves the situation by just shooting Madame Masque in the head (her mask absorbs the impact, so she's just knocked out). It still causes Spider-Man to be upset at Bucky, as he thinks he endangered a civilian.
• Iconic Sequel Character:
  • Despite the popularity of the character, Spider-Man only joins the Avengers as a full-fledged member for the first time here.
  • The Ronin identity is better known as an alias of Clint Barton rather than Echo, thanks to Echo only wearing it for a handful of appearances before it was appropriated by Barton following Civil War (2006).
• Identity Amnesia: In Issue #26, Hawkeye tracks down Wanda to a mountain village in Transia, where she's living a normal life with no memory of her previous life. Avengers: The Children's Crusade would later Retcon this Wanda as Actually a Doombot that Doctor Doom made to throw people off Wanda's real trail.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: During the fight with the Wrecker, Spider-Woman has to activate her Living Aphrodisiac powers to get him to calm down for a sneak attack. Unfortunately, since all her teammates are male, it also affects them as well, causing them all to get annoyed for making them all hot-and-bothered, and ask them to at least warn then about it the next time she uses them.
• I Have Your Wife: Hood's plan to incapacitate heroes is to start targeting their families and loved ones.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Elektra kills Echo by stabbing her in the chest with one of her Sais. But she has The Hand bring Echo Back from the Dead soon after so she can be Brainwashed into serving them. At the end of the arc, Echo returns the favor, killing Elektra in the same fashion which reveals she was actually a Skrull.
• Impersonation-Exclusive Character: From the very first issue, Spider-Woman is actually the Skrull Queen Veranke, something that would only be revealed during the Secret Invasion (2008) event, much later. Downplayed in that Spider-Woman/Jessica does join the team for real after that event. Similarly, all of Elektra's appearances in the run were actually that of the Skrull Pagon in disguise.
• Informed Flaw: Echo is deaf, and people sometimes acknowledge they need to look at her so she can read their lips, but the team has several conversations where they noticeably never look at her, or they're wearing masks making her unable to read their lips. Despite this, it's never shown that she has trouble following the conversations and discussions and she even replies to comments made by people facing away from her.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies:
  • Daredevil pulls this when Captain America first approaches him to be part of the first line-up. He tries to pull it again when Luke Cage and Jessica Jones ask him to join the team following Fear Itself, but they point out it doesn't really work, since he'd be an Avenger and they'd have his back.
  • Doctor Strange tries a similar argument after Daniel Drumm swears vengeance on him, which sets up one of Luke Cage's better lines. "Okay. Raise your hand if any of you [the gathered members of the New Avengers] have ever had the bad guy threaten all holy hell on you before he died, went to jail, disappeared, vanished, or just in general felt like lipping off." Every hand in the room goes up.
  • On the other hand, Jessica Jones walked away from the team because her daughter's life was threatened by Norman Osborn.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: J. Jonah Jameson makes a brief appearance in this run when the New Avengers approach him with a deal: if Jameson stopped bashing Spider-Man every time he needed an editorial, he'd get an exclusivity deal with them. He even got to hear Captain America tell him Spidey was a hero rather than a monster. His response? After shaking hands on the deal, he promptly went back to not only committing libel, but making accusations of bribery and digging up things like "wanted murderer" (Wolverine), "terrorist" (Spider-Woman) and "convicted drug dealer" (Luke Cage, who was framed and exonerated).
  • However, this stunt ultimately ends up backfiring on Jonah over in the pages of The Pulse (which Bendis was concurrently writing). As Luke's engaged to Jessica Jones at this time, she's enraged by what Jonah wrote about her fiancee. She uses the article as grounds for terminating her deal with the Bugle and gives exclusive press about their daughter's birth to one of Jonah's rivals in retaliation. Robbie Robertson all but tells Jonah he has no one to blame but himself for this debacle.
• Jive Turkey: Downplayed since Luke Cage has been modernized somewhat in this run, his Gosh Darn It to Heck! tendencies are subverted more often than not. ("Sweet f&#$%g Christmas!")
• Kill and Replace: A Skrull attempts to do this to Echo, since she has the least ties and histories with the other and would have been the easiest to replace. But thankfully, Wolverine also suspected a Skrull would target her under the same logic and kept track of her, and they both managed to defeat it together.
• The Leader:
  • Naturally, Captain American leads the first iteration of the team.
  • After the events of Civil War (2006), Luke Cage becomes the unofficial team leader.
  • After the events of Secret Invasion (2008), Clint Barton as Ronin is elected the new official team leader, with Ms. Marvel as his Number Two.
• Legacy Character:
  • Subverted - After the death of Steve Rogers, Luke Cage states that they are Avengers, because Captain America said they were.
  • Clint Barton assumes the Ronin name after Captain America's death and keeps it until the start of the Heroic Age.
  • Bucky joins the team during his tenure as Captain America.
  • Discussed by Iron Fist and Doctor Strange following Civil War (2006), with the two of them bearing mantles (Sorcerer Supreme and the Iron Fist) that had been previously passed down to them, and they will later pass on in their lives. Capped off with this:
  Iron Fist: Well, whoever they are, I hate them.
  Doctor Strange: As do I.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Norman Osborn gets so obsessed with capturing the New Avengers, he pursues Ms. Marvel by himself when he sees her escape. But when they're far enough, Ms. Marvel just turns back and kicks his ass, telling he's an idiot for thinking he can take her on his own alone and for rushing off on his lonesome.
• And Then What?: The Wrecker grabs a crowbar and starts to toss around Spider-Man, Wolverine and Luke Cage. Then, Spider-Woman walks up and asks "why?". She wonders why despite having the power of a god, a bunch of kids in Los Angeles managed to beat up him and his whole team. She very nearly converts him to the side of good, until it's revealed she wasn't even trying, just lulling him into a false sense of security. It helps that she is both an experienced spy and exudes pheromones that make men fall in love with her.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • In the initial arc, Maria Hill informs Captain America that he can't just form a new team of Avengers because he feels like it. Cap then tells her that she can check his S.H.I.E.L.D. file and verify for herself that he was previously given "Full Champion License" during Nick Fury's tenure as S.H.I.E.L.D. director; which means that he has the authority to assemble any team he sees fit to go on any mission he sees fit and they don't need S.H.I.E.L.D. permission to put the Avengers back together. Never mind that S.H.I.E.L.D. never had any authority over the Avengers anyway.
  • When Brother Voodoo challenges Agamotto one-on-one, he uses a spell that gathers the collective strength and fighting ability of the New Avengers into a single person.
• Lysistrata Gambit: After Luke Cage's brief stint as The Paranoiac is over, Jessica Jones jokes to him that "he's never having sex again" as a punishment.
• Mamet Speak: As expected of a Brian Michael Bendis comic, but especially whenever Luke and Jessica Jones are having a conversation - they get entire pages worth of back-and-forth.
• Man on Fire: Yelena gets set on fire when she gets caught by Sauron's blast, which leads her to become heavily disfigured. HYDRA uses the promise to heal HER body in order to get her to work for them.
• Modesty Bedsheet:
  • In Issue #14, when Nick Fury calls Spider-Woman in the middle of the night, she's seemingly sleeping in the nude as she's only wearing a bedsheet (despite being alone in her bedroom).
  • Issue #26, after Hawkeye wakes up after passing out during his meeting with Wanda, he finds himself in her bed, having been undressed by her, supposedly to help with his health. When they end up sleeping together not long after, they both end up having separate sheets wrapped around their waists, with Wanda crossing her arms to cover her chest.
  • In the second annual, Tigra Sleeps in the Nude and is covered with a sheet in her bedroom when the Hood and his men break him, and she keeps the sheet clutched to her chest the entire time. Given the dark tone of the scene and parallels to rape, it's very much played as Fan Disservice.
  • Issue #54 opens with Brother Voodoo sneaking out of the bed of a random woman he slept, with him putting his clothes while she's covered by a bedsheet.
• The Mole:
  • It's revealed fairly early on that Spider-Woman is being a mole for S.H.I.E.L.D and then the New Avengers, although it takes some time before it's revealed it's for HYDRA. But what's really surprising is that she's actually the Skrull Queen Veranke until after Secret Invasion (2008).
  • Skaar was Steve Rogers' inside man in the second incarnation of the Dark Avengers.
• Ms. Fanservice: Spider-Woman/Jessica Drew is the designed fanservice provider when she's on the team. She's drawn as a Head-Turning Beauty who wears a form fitting Sensual Spandex as her hero costume, and gets plenty of Male Gaze shots. She also ends up naked fairly often, such one issue it even shows she Sleeps in the Nude when Fury calls her one night and is confronted by Wolverine while she's in the middle of a shower. Although technically speaking, it's actually Queen Veranke who's the Ms. Fanservice, since she's impersonating Jessica the whole time until Secret Invasion (2008), which also makes the whole thing double as Fan Disservice. Notably, Jessica doesn't get into any fanservice situations when she comes back, though she still looks the same.
• Naked People Are Funny: The Undressing the Unconscious situation the New Avengers find themselves in after being captured by the Savage Land Mutates is Played for Laughs:
  Spider-Woman: They couldn’t leave our underwear on?
  Spider-Man: I wasn’t wearing any.
  Spider-Woman: Why wouldn't you be wearing any underwear?
  Spider-Man: I chafe.
  [Beat]
  Spider-Woman: I want off the team.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: The Hood is granted the Norn Stones by Loki after his connection with Dormammu's is severed. After Loki takes them back, he seeks out Count Nefaria to try and invoke this again, but the New Avengers track him down and arrest him before he could get new powers again.
• Never Found the Body: The "Collective" arc ends with a plane that has Magneto onboard exploding, with all hands lost. Everyone treats it like it's a serious possibility Magneto is actually, totally dead for reals. He showed up in an X-Men comic a few months later.
• Never My Fault: It's kinda Daniel Drumm's fault his brother dies, yet he still blames the Avengers for it.
• Never Recycle a Building: The Avengers' mansion was left abandoned after the break-up of the team at Avengers Disassembled, and stayed that way up to after Siege, when it was given to Luke Cage and the New Avengers. Justified, as the owner Tony Stark could no longer give financial support to the Avengers, but the mansion still belonged to him, so he decided to keep it that way.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • The Hood gives one to Tigra, ambushing her in her home, and showing her that if she tries resisting, he knows where her mother leaves. He proceeds to give her a brutal beatdown, and records the whole thing so he can show it to his villain friends later.
  • The Wrecker gives on to Luke Cage after he's Brought Down to Normal, pressing on his chest and damaging his heart leaving him an Almost Dead Guy. To make matters worse, even after the New Avengers escape, due to getting his powers back, his skin is unbreakable, preventing Night Nurse from being able to cut him open and do the surgery needed to save him, forcing the heroes to give up Cage to Norman Osborn so he can save his life.
• No One Could Survive That!: When Spider-Woman "accidentally" lets Madame Hydra escape by opening the plane's hatch and dropping her into the ocean, Spider-Man and Luke Cage are in disbelief she could survive being dropped into the ocean while tied up. Captain America, who's used to her always surviving, assures him otherwise.
• No-Sell: Spider-Man is immune to telepathy while asleep, as one S.H.I.E.L.D. psychic finds out a few seconds too late.
• Nuke 'em:
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. nukes the Savage Land vibranium mining operation before the New Avengers can investigate it.
  • The American government's plan to deal with the Collective is to nuke what's left of Genosha while the Avengers are on it. Maria Hill refuses to do it.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Jeryn Hogarth, Daniel Rand's lawyer, manages to run circles around Iron Man, and seriously pisses off Ms. Marvel in the process.
• Oh, Crap!: Purple Man tries to use his Mind Control powers to get Luke Cage to turn on his friend and then commit suicide, all the while taunting him he'll pay a visit to Jessica and their child. Then Luke informs him Purple Man is still under the effect of a drug that takes away his powers. Cue a shot of Purple Man "Oh Crap" face before Luke starts pummeling him.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten:
  • The Sentry throwing the Void into the sun. A minor Running Gag involves someone thinking he will solve the current problem by killing people in the same manner.
  • Spider-Man reminds everyone that Victoria Hand was Norman Osborn's right hand during Dark Reign at every opportunity.
• Once More, with Clarity: In issue #14, we get several flashbacks to Spider-Woman's story as a Double Agent to S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA, and during Secret Invasion (2008), we get to see many of those same scenes, but this time, in with the knowledge Veranke is posing as Spider-Woman.
• One of the Boys: Within the team dynamic, Mockingbird is not part of the Pseudo-Romantic Friendship between Carol and the two Jessicas (Spider-Woman and Jessica Jones), and instead whenever she's getting chummy with a team member, it's with one of the boys. She also has the most tomboyish personality, probably helped by her tomboyish name.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted between Jessica Jones and Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew).
• Only in It for the Money: Electro causes a Great Escape at the Rafe purely for the money.
• Out of Focus: Maya Lopez, a.k.a. Echo, fell victim to this in this run, which Lampshaded in some of her future appearances:
  • In Bendis' Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel is unable to remember Maya's name and Spider-Man flat out forgets she ever left the team in the first place.
  • During a Terrible Interviewees Montage for the position of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage's daughter's babysitter, one of the applicants is Maya who states "You know, I used to be on this f***ing team!"
• Overused Copycat Character: When Luke asks if there's any connection between Spider-Man and Spider-Woman they're both annoyed to point out how many spider-themed characters there are now
  Luke Cage: Spider-Man, Spider-Woman–You guys related?
  Spider-Man: No.
  Luke Cage:: You give her her powers or something?
  Spider-Man: No. She’s totally unrelated to me in any way.
  Luke Cage: So she ripped off your name?
  Spider-Man: Exactly.
  Spider-Woman: Hey! You said it was okay.
  Spider-Man: I didn’t say you could lend it out. There’s, like, ten of you now.
  Spider-Woman: There’s three. And they are ripping me off.
• Page-Turn Surprise: Doctor Strange/Zom annihilating friend and foe alike in Annual #2. Double points for being a blood-red two-page spread interrupting what had formerly been a blue and purple night scene.
• Paranoia Fuel: Becomes an In-Universe theme of the first volume, with the Avengers constantly wondering who they could trust, with several Double Agents, The Mole reveals and the entirety of the secret Skrull invasion.
• The Paranoiac: While trust issues become a recurring thing and everyone becomes paranoid after discovering Elektra was a Skrull, Luke Cage is hit harder than most, to the point he starts suspecting even his own wife and child may be Skrulls, which earns him a couple of What the Hell, Hero? speeches from Jessica.
• Playing Both Sides:
  • Jessica Drew/Spider Woman was revealed to be recruited by HYDRA to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. as The Mole in exchange for her powers being restored, except Nick Fury had her feeding HYDRA limited intel whilst S.H.I.E.L.D. analyzed the HYDRA cell and planned to use the intel to take them down; when Captain America recruited her to the New Avengers, HYDRA amended her role to also spy on the Avengers. When the team found out about her role as a Double Agent, it was decided to do the same thing she was doing for S.H.I.E.L.D. and have her feed HYDRA limited intel. And then it turns out that she was replaced by Skrull Queen Veranke during the procedure to restore her powers, and she was playing the New Avengers, HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. as part of the Skrulls' plans to take Earth.
  • Victoria Hand, formerly Norman Osborn's right hand during Dark Reign, serves as the team's S.H.I.E.L.D liaison at Steve Rogers's request, but provides info on the team to Osborn's new H.A.M.M.E.R organization. However, this is also at Rogers's request, as she provides info on H.A.M.M.E.R to him, with the New Avengers' distrust of her providing the ideal cover.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: Secret War (2004) featured a team-up between many of the characters who would go on to form the core cast of New Avengers, and also set up several plot threads for that series.
• Power Incontinence:
  • HYDRA and A.I.M. give Yelena Belova Adaptoid-like powers, but Yelena can't handle the stress when they take Sentry's powers, since it also means she takes in the Void's insanity.
  • When Ms. Marvel's binary powers got into contact with The Collective, she had a major Freak Out, due to getting into contact with the powers of various mutants at the same time.
• Power Outage Plot: The comic opens with Electro causing a Big Blackout in New York City, which knocks out power to the Raft, the prison for supervillains, leading to a massive jailbreak. The new Avengers team is formed from heroes who happened to be there to respond to the crisis.
• In Prison with the Rogues: In the end of the first issue, it's revealed that Sentry is locked on The Raft by his own choice with the rest of the supervillains, the reason being that he was unable to control his own powers and killed his wife. However, during the jailbreak orchestrated by Electro, he comes to the aid of the heroes struggling against Carnage, where he snatches and grabs hold of the psychotic Symbiote and flies him into outer space where he proceeds to tear him apart.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: In Issue #1, a cliffhanger occurs during the breakout of The Raft: Killgrave orders Luke Cage to kill all the heroes, then kill himself. The next issue reveals it didn't work because Killgrave's been pumped with drugs to suppress his powers and Luke proceeds to beat Killgrave to a pulp.
• The Psycho Rangers:
  • A The Amazing Spider-Man (J. Michael Straczynski) tie-in featured a team of evil Avenger doppelgangers working for HYDRA. Their costumes were basically green and yellow palette-swaps of the originals with the HYDRA octopus logo added on. "Militant" for Captain America, "Tactical Force" (though he prefers Karl) for Iron Man, "the Hammer" for Thor and "the Bowman" for Hawkeye. Spidey, of course, pointed out how done-to-death the evil twin thing was, and none of them ever faced their "originals" (albeit Hammer and Bowman had the justified excuse that Thor and Hawkeye were technically dead at this point). None of them were captured, but they haven't shown up since then (except for the Facebook game, Marvel: Avengers Alliance).
  • The Dark Reign arc introduced the Dark Avengers, a supposed hero team who are actually posing as their counterparts. This interaction is mostly based on Norman Osborn's Thunderbolts: Norman Osborn leads the team as the Iron Man-Captain America mashup called 'Iron Patriot'; Ares is a mashup of Thor and Hercules; Venom (MacGargan, previously known as Scorpion) as Spider-Man; Moonstone as Ms. Marvel; Noh-Varr as Captain Marvel; Bullseye as Hawkeye and Daken as Wolverine. Only The Sentry doesn't pose as anyone, because he's just that plain nuts to join an Obviously Evil team. Though the Dark Avengers didn't match up well with the actual Avengers they faced, for instance, there was no counterpart for Luke Cage or Spider-Woman.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Wolverine, for the last few arcs of the first volume, due to his being on Utopia with the rest of the X-Men. Notable, as he was still considered a member of the team during this time - Everyone else who left the title wasn't.
  • Echo was sent to keep an eye on The Hand and Elektra shortly after "joining" the team. She only came back when they had to rescue her in the post-Civil War (2006) "Revolution" arc. But then she was written out of the book after Secret Invasion (2008), eventually joining the cast of Moon Knight.
  • Doctor Strange joined the team post-Civil War (2006), but left to go Walking the Earth after the Hood and his gang destroyed his home. He only returns in Issue #52 as a Guest-Star Party Member until they deal with Dormammu-possessed Hood and he leaves to become The Mentor to Brother Voodoo.
• The Queenpin: In the "Revolution" arc, Silver Samurai admits Elektra became this in the Japanese underworld, as The Leader of The Hand, she took control of pretty much all Yakuza families and criminal business in Japan. By the end of the arc, we find out she was actually a Skrull, and taking over the Japanese underworld was just a part of their plan for Secret Invasion (2008).
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: In one of the flashbacks where Spider-Woman/Queen Veranke says something in Skrull (as in, the Skrull language). If you decode the Skrull writing—which is English but in a very strange font—you'll see that the actual sentence she speaks seems to be a placeholder that the comic's writer forgot to exchange for an actual line:
  Veranke: Jessica says something very Skrully.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite being pro-registration and under orders to arrest them, Ms. Marvel looks the other way several times when it comes to trying to arrest the New Avengers, despite many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and her own teammates (Black Widow, Ares) not liking it.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Spider-Woman explains this is what happened to her in S.H.I.E.L.D after Secret War, due to being known as a Fury loyalist, she got assigned crappy jobs, such as overseeing the Raft in Issue #1. This has a double meaning once we find out she's actually Veranke at the time, as it explains why Veranke was so eager to join a new team like the New Avengers.
• Recognition Failure: In Issue #7, Wrecker is pissed when the girl he takes as a hostage doesn't know who he is. He's still mad about it when the New Avengers attack him, screaming the whole fight that he fought Thor and the Avengers before.
• Red Herring:
  • The "Ronin" arc introduces a mysterious masked vigilante called Ronin. A sequence of Ronin beating up Yakuza goons in Japan is intercut with flashbacks of Captain America asking Daredevil to join the team, with the latter declining due to recently having been outed to the public as Matt Murdock in his own series. Cap then brings up the period where he briefly adopted the superheroic alias of Nomad, suggesting that Matt could similarly take on a new costumed identity to join the Avengers without arousing suspicion. This, coupled with Ronin's penchant for using nunchaku (similar to Daredevil's trademark billy clubs), is clearly meant to fool the reader into thinking Ronin is indeed Matt Murdock, but Matt instead tells Cap that he has a friend who might be able to do the job. Subsequent issues continue the mystery, with Spider-Man guessing that it might be Daredevil's old allies Iron Fist or Shang-Chi under the mask, only for it to ultimately be revealed that Ronin is actually Maya Lopez, a.k.a. Echo.
  • During the initial lead-up to Secret Invasion (2008), an issue of New Avengers ended with a dramatic close-up of Dani Cage, the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, whose eyes were shown glowing. This was obviously meant to imply that she (and by extension, one of her parents) might be a Skrull, but was really just an indication that she'd inherited superpowers from her parents.
• Retroactive Legacy: The tie-in to Avengers vs. X-Men revolved around Fongji Wu, a female, mixed-race Iron Fist that had managed to harness the Phoenix Force long before Jean Grey was even born.
• Revolving Door Casting: The team Captain America assembles at the beginning of the series consists of himself, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, Wolverine and the Sentry. After the events of Civil War (2006), Captain America, Iron Man and the Sentry are replaced by Doctor Strange, Echo, Iron Fist and Hawkeye. Finally, Secret Invasion (2008) shakes up the status quo once again, leading to the departure of Doctor Strange and Echo, while Bucky Barnes, Mockingbird, Ms. Marvel and Jessica Jones join the team.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Iron Man first informs the Illuminati about the formation of the New Avengers:
  Namor: When were you going to tell me about this?
  Iron Man: It just happened yesterday.
  Namor: I thought we had an arrangement here.
  Iron Man: Does anyone know how to say "It just happened yesterday" in Atlantean?
  Reed Richards: Fortanu vasyama.
  (everyone in the room stares at Richards)
  Reed Richards: Oh, I, uh... I thought you were really asking.
• Running Gag:
  • A recurring joke involves someone wondering who a minor/obscure Marvel character is. When a direct answer proves to be insufficient, they are told to "Google it".
  • Whenever the Avengers are getting their asses handed to them, someone (usually Spider-Man) suggests that Sentry throws whatever is kicking the team's ass into the sun.
  The Sentry: I don't throw everything into the sun...
• Samus Is a Girl: Ronin turns out to be Echo, with Spider-Man and Luke Cage both being surprised Ronin is female. When Silver Samurai finds out much later, he's also surprised Ronin was a girl.
• Scenery Censor: When Spider-Woman is telling Captain America about how she got her powers back from HYDRA, we get a shot of her naked during the procedure, with her crotch and one her breasts being covered by medical equipment (the other breast is covered by a conveniently placed speech balloon).
• Screaming Woman: When the Hood attacks Tigra in her house, she is overpowered and screams "AIIEEEE" over and over.
• Second Episode Introduction: Wolverine is introduced in Issue #5, the only mainstream of the team not to have been recruited beforehand.
• Sexy Discretion Shot:
  • When Hawkeye sleeps with the amnesiac Wanda, we only see them kissing before the scene cuts to the morning after, with Hawkeye sneaking away.
  • When Echo and Hawkeye sleep together we similarly only see them kissing, before the scene cuts to them in bed post-sex.
• Shameful Strip:
  • In the very first arc, the team is captured while doing some investigating in the Savage Land and all stripped naked while they're out. Spider-Woman notes how humiliating it is and wishes that their captors could have at least let them keep their undergarments, though Spider-Man responds that he doesn't wear any anyway when in costume since it makes him chafe.
  • In New Avengers Annual #3, Clint Barton (usually Hawkeye but Ronin at the time) awakes from a botched attempt to kill Norman Osborn stark naked and bound to a chair, with Norman and the evil Dark Avengers (one of whom is female) sneering at him. He spends most of the issue chained naked to a table as Norman has Mentallo psychically torture him.
• Shoot Your Mate: Played With. They're hardly mates, but Madame Hydra forces Spider-Woman to blast her so they can keep Spider-Woman's status as The Mole. But Madame Hydra getting taken down so easily tips off Iron Man and Captain America that there's more going on.
• Shout-Out: When Spider-Man rescues Echo from The Hand, he says "I'm Luke Skywalker and I'm here to rescue you".
• Shower of Awkward:
  • Echo ends up accidentally walking into Hawkeye while he's taking a shower. We only see him from the waist up but it's obvious that Echo saw more, and stared for a bit. The incident is what kicks off their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
  • After Spider-Woman joins the Mighty Avengers, Wolverine becomes suspicious that she's going to betray the New Avengers location to Stark and the others, so he decides to pay her a visit. So, while she's taking a Shower of Angst in her room, he suddenly appears behind her and puts his claws up to her neck and interrogates her and what she told Stark, with her obviously being uncomfortable with his presence. The situation is made even more awkward when Black Widow also walks into the shower and catches them in a Not What It Looks Like situation.
• The Smurfette Principle: While a few female characters join the team for an arc or two (Echo in the "Ronin" arc, Ms. Marvel in the "Collective" arc), Spider-Woman is the only permanent female team member until she quits and joins the Mighty Avengers cast, which is coincidentally when Echo permanently joins the team, thus becoming the sole female team member until after Secret Invasion (2008), when the team gets 3 women on the team (Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel and Mockingbird). Technically Jessica Jones is always around, but she acts like a supporting character who's living with them as a civilian.
• Speech-Bubble Censoring:
  • When Sauron is speaking to the Avengers as their naked and strung up by their arms, his speech balloon is conveniently placed on their waist (and Spider-Woman still has Godiva Hair covering her breasts).
  • In Issue #14, when Spider-Woman is telling Captain America about how she got her powers back from HYDRA, the flashback has a shot of her naked on an operating table, surrounded by doctors. Her right breast is hidden by a utensil tray held up by one of the doctors while her left is covered up by a word balloon. The scene is recreated in #42.
• Spiritual Successor: Most of the original line-up of the New Avengers had fought in the Secret War (also by Bendis). Too bad they don't remember the details.
• Story-Breaker Power: Some arcs Handwave Sentry not being present, since he's too powerful for the story to work. This is lampshaded by Spider-Man at the end of the "Ronin" arc:
  Spider-Man: You know guys, I couldn't help but think during that entire thing that if Sentry was there, it would have been over in three minutes.
• Super Mob Boss: The Hood was an Unlucky Everydude who got a magical cape and shoes from a certain demon that granted supernatural powers, and with that in hand he fights to become a mob boss. But even without his magical clothes, he's also a Badass Normal who can fight with Guns Akimbo. When he loses his demonic powers, he makes a deal with Loki to get new ones, but given it's Loki, Hood is eventually betrayed and loses them once he's outlived his usefulness. He tries again to get powers via a deal with Madame Masque's father Count Nefaria, but the New Avengers interrupt the deal before it's realized and arrest everyone.
• Super Window Jump:
  • When Wolverine has to escape Avengers Tower after interrogating Spider-Woman, he does so by jumping out of the window, revealing Spider-Man was nearby and catches him so they both make their escape.
  • When Luke Cage quits being Norman Osborn "Avenger" (before he even started) he does so by beating Bullseye and MacGargan before dramatically jumping out the window from Osborn's office.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Lampshaded between Echo and Daredevil. Matt was unable to join the team due to his legal problems at the time, so he suggested to Captain America that Echo join in his place. He pointed out that since she has virtually the same skill set and all his knowledge of the Japanese underworld, it'd be the next best thing to actually having him on the team.
• The Syndicate: Hood's Gang is a criminal organization of super-villains that The Hood created after Civil War (2006) left the heroes disorganized, and they are one of the most recurring foes of the New Avengers. Aside from Hood, some of its notable members includes Madame Masque (who acts as The Dragon), The Wrecking Crew (The main muscle), Jonas Harrow (The Evil Genius and The Starscream) and Jigsaw (The first recruit).
• Take That!: There were a few 'take that' moments towards One More Day, not only having Spider-Man reveal his secret identity to the New Avengers as soon as he could and having Spider-Woman, who never has any fourth wall breaking moments, asking if Peter wasn't married.
• Talking in Bed:
  • Issue #36 has Doctor Strange and Night Nurse having a post-coital conversation, where he tells her about the guilt he has over having staying neutral during the events of Civil War (2006).
  • In Issue #36, Luke Cage and Jessica Jone are snuggling in bed while he informs her (and the reader) about the symbiote invasion that occurred in Mighty Avengers #8.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Played With. Spider-Woman starts talking down to the Wrecker, asking him what he's even going to do with himself after he beats them. But then it turns out it was just a plot to but enough time for Wolverine to sneak attack him In the Back. Later she actually confesses that the reason he listened at all was due to her Living Aphrodisiac Pheromones power.
• That Wasn't a Request: When Iron Man and Captain America get into contact with Maria Hill to inform her about the new Avengers team, she is vehemently against it, but Tony and Steve quickly point out they have authority to assemble to the team on their own.
  Tony Stark: I'm sorry if you were under the impression we were asking for permission.
• This Was His True Form: The New Avengers killing Elektra only to watch her body turn into a Skrull is treated as a Wham Shot and is what triggers the events of Secret Invasion (2008).
• Thou Shall Not Kill:
  • Captain America and Wolverine butt head over this, as Steve has to leash Wolverine not to kill anyone a couple of times, even hitting him with his shield once, when Wolverine was about to kill Yelena. Captain America also orders this of Echo when she's investigating the Hand, and while she seems to comply to it for a while, eventually the Hand puts too much pressure on her and she goes back to using lethal force.
  • After Steve Rogers leaves, Spider-Man is the most outspoken against killing. He's angry when Bucky shots Madame Masque in the head (she only survived because of her mask) and gets extremely upset when Clint decides that Murder Is the Best Solution when it comes to dealing with Norman Osborn, to the point he almost quits the team.
• Time Skip: The comic book began with a six-month time skip from the events of Avengers Disassembled.
• Token Evil Teammate: Wolverine, of the Necessarily Evil kind. Iron Man notes to Captain America that, aside from strengthening human/mutant relations, this would be an important reason to have Logan around - He'd be able (and willing) to do things that none of the other team members would (though Wolvie's considerably more mellow in those days).
• Too Much Information: After everyone wakes up naked in the Savage Land, Spider-Woman notes Peter is the only one without underwear. He explains he never wears any in his Spidey outfit (it chafes). Spider-Woman's reaction?
  Spider-Woman: I want off the team.
• Total Party Kill: All of Alpha Flight, which, granted, are mostly C-list by fame, got killed in a Worf Barrage moment when fighting the Collective. After that, two of them were shown to be Not Quite Dead and those that weren't have apparently come back anyway.
• Transplant: Ms. Marvel sided with Iron Man in Civil War (2006) and for a while was even The Leader of the "official" government-sponsored Avengers team Mighty Avengers, and would often butt heads with the New Avengers team. However, after Secret Invasion (2008) and Norman Osborn's government appointment, she joins up with the New Avengers, even becoming their Number Two.
• Trash of the Titans: Bucky gets very upset with how messy the New Avengers leave his apartment once he lends it to them as their Home Base.
• Trauma Conga Line: This series is hard on Doctor Strange. The final flare-up of dark magic which led him to give up the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme; the quest for his successor with a Dormammu-empowered Hood at his heels; and finally the abrupt invasion of Agamotto into their dimension, which the new Sorcerer Supreme, Brother Voodoo, repelled at the cost of the Eye of Agamotto and his own life — all happened in issues of New Avengers.
• True Companions: The team has a "family" vibe, complete with nearly-once-a-book scenes of them sitting around a table eating and talking.
• Twofer Token Minority: Ech is of mixed Latina and Native American descent. In fact, her having a disability (deafness) makes it a threefer.
• Undressing the Unconscious:
  • When the New Avengers go to the Savage Land in pursuit of Sauron in Issue #5, they get ambushed by the Savage Land Mutates with Vertigo putting them all to Forced Sleep. When they next wake up, they're all been stripped naked and strung up by their arms (A combination of Censor Shadow, Godiva Hair, Scenery Censor, Speech-Bubble Censoring and Shoulders-Up Nudity are used to keep any naughty bits from being seen).
  • In Issue #26, Hawkeye has a panic attack upon finding an amnesiac Wanda in a village in Transia. He blacks out, and when he wakes up at her place she seems to have entirely undressed him, supposedly to help with his health, and he only wears a Modesty Bedsheet wrapped around his waist for the rest of the scene.
  • In New Avengers Annual #3, after Clint gets captured by the Dark Avengers after his failed attempt to assassinate Norman, he wakes up naked and tied to a chair, facing all of them and they proceed to interrogate him. Clint tries to fight them off, even while tied to a chair and naked but Sentry takes him out in one punch. When Bobbi and the rest of the team go to save him, he's still naked on an operating table, with Mentallo trying to read his mind. The whole time Censor Shadow or Scenery Censor is covering his crotch we see him from the front, or he's seen from the waist up.
• Unfocused During Intimacy: When Night Nurse (Linda Carter) and Doctor Strange have Sex for Solace, Strange is so stressed by his guilt over not helping during Civil War (2006) and the discovery of a possible Skrull invasion that he's very unfocused. When they're Talking in Bed post-sex Linda says he was basically in the Astral Plane the entire time, and is somewhat miffed about it.
  Night Nurse: Well, doctor if you're not going to succumb to any of my considerable talents... I am going to go back to my hospice and stare at the wall.
• Unholy Matrimony: The Hood and Madame Masque begin a relationship, soon after he rescues her from being a victim of Kill and Replace by the Skrulls in Secret Invasion (2008).
• The Unmasking:
  • When Spider-Man first joined many in the team already were Secret Keepers of him, and the ones who didn't found out during his dramatic unmasking in Civil War (2006). Then the One More Day Cosmic Retcon happened, and nobody knew who Spider-Man was again, which came up in a post-Secret Invasion (2008) story where Clint asked him to unmask for the team, with Spidey reluctantly complying.
  • Madame Masque unmasks herself to kiss Hood when they become a couple, although we don't see her face.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: There's a bit of awkward sexual tension between Echo and Hawkeye, mostly on her part with her feeling awkward whenever he does something nice for her or gets close. It gets resolved in Issue #40. But their romance was completely dropped once Clint's ex-wife Mockingbird returned "from the dead" (it's complicated) at the close of Secret Invasion (2008) and Echo was Put on a Bus.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The Savage Land Mutates simply wanted to get Sauron back when they caused the Raft escape, but that event caused several super-villains to go free, causing trouble all over the world but they also unwittingly put the heroes on track of uncovering the Skrulls' invasion.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: Hood pays visits to Tigra in her home to intimidate her or beat her up, and she's helpless to stop it since, more importantly, he knows where her mother lives.
• Villains Out Shopping: When the team is running from the Hand, they wind up at Silver Samurai's house, where he's watching Lindsay Lohan movies.
• You Know Too Much: When the Adaptoid-powered Yelena Belova is defeated by the New Avengers, her HYDRA masters active an remote failsafe bomb implanted on her, killing her before she can talk. She came back later anyway.
• Waking Up Elsewhere:
  • After Vertigo knocks out the New Avengers via Forced Sleep, they all awaken to find themselves in the Savage Land Mutates base, imprisioned and naked.
  • The Silver Samurai describes his imprisonment as this. One day he went to sleep on his private plane, and the next morning he woke up in the Raft. S.H.I.E.L.D. kept him imprisoned and declared him Legally Dead. He didn't even know he was in New York until the riot allowed him to escape.
  • When Spider-Man is put under Forced Sleep by Agent Hook, the next time he wakes up he's in a S.H.I.E.L.D. cell being interrogated by Maria Hill.
• Wedding Episode: The first New Avengers annual features the marriage between Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. And it actually goes peacefully, with Jessica even lampshading how she expected some goons to attack them. Notably, Stan Lee is the one officiating the wedding.
• We Have Ways of Making You Talk: Played for Laughs. The heroes need information quickly and go to a local prison in order to get it from the inmates. Spider-Woman, aware of how dreadful the inmates' meals are, offers a bag of donuts to whoever agrees to assist the Avengers, which immediately prompts every single criminal to beg to be listened.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Spider-Woman is treated poorly by most of the team after Secret Invasion (2008), due to the fact Veranke was impersonating her the whole time. Even though they know it's not her fault, everyone save Ms. Marvel and Wolverine are still wary about her, and her past as a HYDRA Double Agent doesn't help.
• We Work Well Together: The New Avengers were formed when a mass jailbreak of supervillains forced several heroes to band up and fight together. Captain America decided they make a good team, and tries to make them into the new Avengers.
• Wham Episode:
  • Issue #6 has the Avengers find out S.H.I.E.L.D. has seemingly enslaved many of the inhabitants of the Savage Land so they would mine vibranium for them. And before the Avengers get a chance to investigate, the Helicarrier shows up and nukes the entire operation, leading the Avengers to question who to trust and kicking off the Paranoia Fuel theme of the run.
  • Issue #31 — Echo kills Elektra, and everyone watches in horror as Elektra's body reverts to her true form as a Skrull, revealing that the Skrulls were covertly replacing high powered figures on Earth in preparation for an invasion.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • During the "Revolution" arc, Silver Samurai notes that the Hand, under Elektra's leadership, are violently seizing control over the Japanese underworld. Once Elektra gets a sword through the chest and turns out to be a Skrull, the Avengers go home and never mention the Hand again.
  • The first time Earth has no Sorcerer Supreme, it's an immediate crisis that must be dealt with at once. The second time, it appears that two years of real-time can pass without any particular badness occurring.
• Worf Effect:
  • During the Raft breakout, Spider-Woman and Luke Cage can barely hold back Carnage, one of Spider-Man's most powerful foes. Sentry, whose powers were mostly unknown at the time, shows up and makes short work of Carnage, flying him off into space and tearing the symbiote in half. Carnage and Cletus were even assumed to be dead for a while.
  • All Alpha Flight members are killed when S.H.I.E.L.D. sent them to fight Collective / Xorn to establish him as a threat.
• Workout Fanservice: Spider-Woman is in the middle of a workout when Steve recruits her for the New Avengers, and the artist draws in a gratuitous Male Gaze shot where she has an Amazonian Beauty physique and is wearing a form-fitting tank top.
• Worf Had the Flu: An issue had Wrecker narrating a fight between the titular team and The Hood's crime syndicate, explaining that he wouldn't have lost to Luke Cage, who is significantly weaker, if Doctor Strange hadn't confused him with his magic.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The Skrull who kidnaps Danielle Cage has no intention to actually hurt the baby, having only taken it as a bargaining chip to ensure his own safety and gives it up quickly to Luke after he pleads. Bullseye still kills him anyway.

Volume II Tropes

• Almighty Janitor: Squirrel Girl as a nanny. Although she is demonstrably more capable than anyone else on the team, she sometimes has trouble being taken seriously, and everyone agrees that she's really the only one of an appropriate mindset to take care of a baby.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: One storyline during focuses on Nick Fury gathering his own version of the Avengers in the fifties, which has nothing to do with the present-day segments.
• Big "NO!": Happens during the Fear Itself crossover, when Squirrel Girl sets her squirrels on a Nazi.
• Book Ends:
  • Vol. 2 #16 (The final Fear Itself tie-in) opened with Hawkeye questioning what makes someone "Avengers material" and several Avengers arguing that certain people don't belong on the team; the issue ends with the same Avengers pointing out that applying Alternate Character Interpretation means that same person is very much the type of person who should be an Avenger.
  • In a wider sense, Vol. 2 started and ended with arcs heavily based around magic, possession, Doctor Strange, and the title of Sorcerer Supreme.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Norman Osborn escapes from prison and organizes a new team of Dark Avengers. One of his recruits is Skaar, son of Hulk. He lists all the reasons why this new team will succeed, and finally points out that "besides, we got a Hulk".
• Brick Joke: In the first issue, Iron Fist gives Luke Cage a dollar to purchase Avengers Mansion from Tony Stark. When Luke leaves the team in the final issue of the volume, he sells it back to Stark for 5 dollars and Iron Fist complains that it was his money in the first place, whilst Stark notes that he sold the mansion to Cage for a fifth of that.
• Bury Your Gays: Victoria Hand gets a bridge dropped on her in the last story of vol 2.
• Caretaking is Feminine: Luke and Jessica are looking for a babysitter/nanny for their new baby. There's a page of them talking to a large number of heroes (including Deadpool and Demolition Man, for some reason) before settling on Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl is, of course, pretty and kind and sweet and feminine. Unless she's pissed off. Then she's capable of taking down practically anyone, including Doctor Doom. Which is probably why they picked her.
• Contrived Coincidence: The 1950s Avengers has Nick Fury recruiting people with superpowers for "The Avengers Initiative". But that doesn't explain the use of the name, as the Avengers were named that way by the Wasp simply for Rule of Cool.
• Covers Always Lie: The cover of Issue #23 shows the team grappling with Skaar, one of Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers. In actuality, Skaar turns out to be a Double Agent who infiltrated the Dark Avengers at Captain America's behest, and he never fights the heroes. In fact, Skaar's true allegiance had already been revealed at the end of issue #22, making #23's cover especially odd.
• Fake Kill Scare: Doctor Strange casts an illusion that causes Victoria Hand to experience her own death as part of a shake-down to see where her loyalties truly lie.
• Fastball Special:
  • In Issue #13, Luke Cage needs to take down a plane. His projectile of choice? Iron Fist, of course. ("I hate when he throws me!")
  • In Issue #21, Spider-Man does a web-slingshot variant of the same trick.
    Spider-Man: Fist him!
    Iron Fist: [in flight] Hate when people say that.
• History Repeats: Implied to be happening during the Avengers vs. X-Men tie-in, in regards to Hope Summers and Fongji Wu.
• How Did You Know? I Didn't: When Dum-Dum Dugan shoots Victor Creed in the head:
  Victor: So... They told you about my healin' factor.
  Dum-Dum: He heals?
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Subverted in the opening arc where Luke Cage gets possessed by a demon, Jessica Jones tries appealing to him, and it apparently works... only it turns out the demon's just screwing with her.
• I Was Just Joking: In the "Possession" arc, Doctor Strange has been trying to protect the Eye of Agamotto from various supernatural attempts to take it from him, while trying to figure out who is behind it all. Spider-Man suggests maybe "Agamotto" wants his eye back. Cue the reaction panel, while Spidey asks "You mean there really is an Agamotto.. and that really is his eye?"
• Killer Rabbit: Squirrel Girl can summon an army of squirrels to kill you. Avengers Mansion is right by Central Park. She can summon a lot of squirrels.
• The Maiden Name Debate: Spoofed in one issue where Luke Cage (a.k.a. "Power Man") tries to convince his wife to go by "Power Woman."
• Nerdgasm: Spider-Man cites the trope by name in Issue #17 when he sees the inner workings of an Ultimo the team is helping Iron Man with.
  Spider-Man: Uh, guys, we have some really advanced stuff percolating under here. Nerdgasm.
• The New Adventures: The New Avengers, an Avengers team created after the team disbanded due to the events of Avengers Disassembled.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Squirrel Girl runs into three Nazi mechs. She charges them as they open fire. We next see her at Avengers Mansion, battered and bleeding.
• Off with His Head!: In the flashback to Fury's Avengers, Sabretooth does this to a Red Skull.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Ms. Marvel doesn't recognize a quote from Ghostbusters, much to Spider-Man and the Thing's consternation.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Daniel Drumm possessed a man and shot himself in the head, making it look like the New Avengers were pulling this trope.
• The Psycho Rangers: Norman Osborn revives the Dark Avengers concept with a new team featuring Skaar, Son of Hulk (The Hulk/Red Hulk); Hawkeye's brother Trickshot (Hawkeye, duh); The Gorgon, Wolverine's deadliest enemy (Wolverine); Ragnarok, a robotic clone of Thor infamously created by Tony Stark's side during Civil War (2006) (Thor); Ai Apaec, a sinister sort of arachnid god (Spider-Man); June Covington, a deranged geneticist Osborn met in prison (Scarlet Witch); and Superia, a Straw Feminist Mad Scientist with super strength (Ms. Marvel). Norman himself becomes the new Super-Adaptoid, making him the only Dark Avenger without any real analogue. Skaar turns out to subvert his role, being Captain America's Mole in the team. Just like the previous iteration, they don't match up well with the actual Avengers they face, as they still have no Luke Cage counterpart and there's no Hulk, Thor, or Scarlet Witch on the team.
• The Quiet One: Fongji, former Iron Fist, hardly ever said a word, so much so everyone assumed she was mute. Eventually, however, she does start speaking.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Daimon Hellstrom delivers an amazing one to the picketers in front of Avengers Mansion (and indirectly to the Marvel Universe civilian populace in general) after they defeat Agamotto in the first arc of Volume 2:
  Nighthawk: I hope you dregs and slackers appreciate what these people just did for you today. They saved your lives! They saved the world! Not metaphorically. Actually! And they're not even going to come out and take a bow. You get me? The world gets to turn one more day and it's because of them. So you better go do something a hell of a lot more meaningful than watching reality TV and fighting over your seat on the bus. You'd better appreciate it.''
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Under Luke Cage, the team consists of anyone he has managed to recruit, yielding a mismatched bag of heroes, some of whom are on their second (or third, or fourth) chance. Wong called them a "second-rate pile of Avengers" and Kyle Richmond, aka Nighthawk, said "clearly you guys are The Defenders."
• Reed Richards Is Useless: In Issue #9, some AIM agents stole some of {Wolverine's blood to manufacture bio-weapons. Iron Man then replied, "Do you realize how far we would advance as a technological species if we didn't have to put up with this every ten minutes?"
• Riding into the Sunset: Luke Cage and Jessica Jones at the end of Volume 2, electing to call time on their tenure with the Avengers following the latest events with the Phoenix in order to raise daughter Danielle.
• Run the Gauntlet: A variant on this happened in the conclusion, where Doctor Strange had to fight the assembled Avengers and New Avengers one-on-one, without hurting them, because a spirit-form enemy who wanted him dead was body-surfing from one to another.
• Servile Snarker: Wong, faithful manservant and friend to Doctor Strange, is normally a straitlaced and serious character, but in the issues of New Avengers when he's had to serve the title characters he gets very... snippy with them.
  Wong: [entering the mansion, loaded down with luggage] When I dedicated my life in service to you as Sorcerer Supreme, I remember I closed my eyes and prayed that one day I would grow up to be a second-rate Jarvis for a second-rate pile of Avengers.
• Shockwave Clap: Luke Cage performs this maneuver in Issue #1. Victoria Hand (Token Good Teammate of the Dark Avengers) meets him at the Avengers Mansion because Captain America asked her to, but shows up with a gun on the grounds that she has no powers to defend herself with and the Avengers aren't exactly fond of her. Since he has Jessica and their baby with him, Cage demonstrates that the gun isn't much help by clapping his hands together so hard Victoria goes flying.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Hope Summers and Fongji, both of whom wield the power of the Phoenix. Fongji takes this even further by being an Iron Fist as well. They even look very similar.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: Luke and Jessica trying to find a superpowered nanny for their daughter. Some candidates are horrible, some are offended, and some take the opportunity to get in a few zings at the team. But the last one is perfect.
• Tonight, Someone Dies: The cover of issue #6 came decked out with a large caption declaring that one of the featured people would die. The characters on the cover? Luke Cage, Ms. Marvel, Doctor Strange, Wolverine... as well as Mockingbird and Brother Voodoo. Since Mockingbird had only recently been resurrected, Brother Voodoo's fate was sealed.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Wong, who spends a lot of his appearances in vol 2 insulting and swearing at everyone.
• Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: "I've always wondered what would happen if I Iron Fisted a Hulk..."^note Let's just say the object moves.
• Villain Episode: The Dark Avengers concept was specifically revisited in Issue #18, which centered around Norman Osborn assembling a new incarnation of the group and forging bonds with HYDRA, A.I.M., and the Hand. Not a single hero — much less an actual member of the Avengers — appeared in the issue.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: When Iron Fist is abducted by Agamotto pretending to be the Ancient One, he hears two voices, one that speaks in green and one in yellow. While the yellow one turns out to be Agamotto the other one remains unrevealed.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Nick Fury warns against immortality, calling it "a ticket to every friend's funeral", when discussing whether to give Mockingbird the Infinity Formula.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: After Victoria Hand has pissed off the Avengers thanks to her actions nearly resulting in Mockingbird's death, we get this lovely dialogue:
  Wolverine: If there's one thing I hate, it's hittin' a dame.
  [cue Mockingbird, who has recently gained Super-Strength, decking Hand without warning]
  Mockingbird: Fortunately, I have no such issue.

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